From 1955 to 1973, the post of the Faculty of History Dean was held by P. Z. Savochkin. Those were years when the system of training in the field of Belarusian history has been shaping in line with new requirements, highly qualified teaching staff has formed. The most important parameters and directions of the modern development of the Faculty of History were set, largely thanks to the Dean.
P. Z. Savochkin was born in the village of Rodina (modern. Liozno district, Vitebsk region) in the family of middle-class peasant. After graduation from the seven-year school and Vitebsk Pedagogical College he worked as a school teacher, district inspector, director of the seven year school (since 1933).
In 1935 P. Z. Savochkin became a student of the Faculty of History of the BSU. In June, 1940 after graduating from the University magna cum laude, he was called up for service to Krasnaya Army soldier and sent to the Baltic Military District. In Riga, June 22, 1941 the Red Army man P. Z. Savochkin joined the battle against the fascist aggressors. He was destined to go through the Great Patriotic War from the first to the last day: from the soldier to officer, the Assistant Chief of Division’s Intelligence. Major of the Guards liberated native Belarus, Warsaw, reached Berlin. His feat of arms was honored with eight military awards (including three orders and the sign of soldier’s valor – the Medal «For Courage»).
Demobilization in July, 1946 allowed the veteran to fulfill the student years’ dream of becoming a scientist. He entered postgraduate studies at alma mater, at the same time he, as a «senior scientist», has been taking part in setting the Great Patriotic War Museum exhibitions. He successfully defended his Candidate’s thesis «The struggle for Soviet power in the western regions of Belarus in 1918– 1920» in 1952. In 1953, he was appointed Deputy Director for academic and scientific work of the Minsk Trade Union Movement School of the All-Union Central Trade Union Council. But it was already in the spring of 1955, that he returned to his native Faculty of History and soon became its Dean. Three years later he became acting Head of the Department of the USSR History.
The Dean had to send his students to the Virgin Lands Campaign, advocate, in historians interest, the university «cradle» – «House number 1 of the BSU», at Krasnoarmeyskaya str. rebuilt in 1958, and then in early 1962 to move the Faculty to the BSU Main building. He managed to recreate an extensive Museum of the Faculty of History, formed the Departments’ associated classrooms with necessary literature, set up a separate department of the Belarusian history. On his initiative, training of historians for special schools with in-depth study of foreign languages was opened in 1963. In 1966, the Faculty received its complete ideological look: historical training was complemented with philosophical one. The pinnacle of Dean’s organizing talent was holding IV Conference of the Universities’ Historians-Slavists in the BSU in 1968.
P. Z. Savochkin’s legacy includes more than 40 published papers. Anthology on the History of the BSSR of 1917–1971, «Manual on the History of the USSR», compiled in conjunction with other Faculty members became top-valued classics for the students of the Faculty of 1960–1970’s. «Friendship Through the Ages» co-authored by D. B. Meltser, was perceived as a breakthrough at the front of internationalism. He finished his Doctoral thesis, «The expansion of foreign capital in the Western Belarus (1919–1939)», but failing health prevented the defense.
It was largely due to the daily care and active participation of the Dean that by the beginning of the 1970s the Faculty of History trained more than two thousand graduates, almost 200 employees defended their candidate and doctoral dissertations.
We are all «the fledglings of the Petrine nest» – famous poet’s line sounded symbolically in the speeches of the BSU Faculty of History alumni during one of P. Z. Savochkin’s anniversary days.